Backyard Sports series

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Backyard Sports is a successful series of video games that play on both consoles and computers.

The series includes Backyard Basketball, Backyard Baseball, Backyard Football (American football), Backyard Soccer, Backyard Hockey (Ice hockey), and, most recently, Backyard Skateboarding. In the games, players pick from a group of kids to form a team, go through some backyard leagues, and play to become the champion.

The games evoke childhood memories for its players by recreating the types of sports fields seen in suburban parks and recreational areas.

Players can create their own athletes, starting in Backyard Football (1999), or name them anyway they want, and also, the player can create a new team name, up until Backyard Soccer 2004. However, more recent versions of the games have included athlete characters based on actual professional athletes (such as Albert Pujols, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Tim Duncan, Tom Brady, Alex Rodriguez and Joe Thornton) as they might have appeared while they were children.

All of the Backyard Sports games take place in the Junior Sports Neighborhood, with the exception of Backyard Football 2006 (which takes place on Football Island) and parts of Backyard Skateboarding and Backyard Hockey 2005.

Backyard Sports games were originally produced by the Humongous Entertainment company.

Some of these games are playable with ScummVM emulator.

Contents

[edit] History (Specific games)

In 1997, the first game in the series, Backyard Baseball, was released. Backyard Soccer was released in 1998. Each one was quite popular with children between 5 and 12, which is the target audience. The first of the franchise to be licensed by a major sports league was 1999's Backyard Football, which featured Jerry Rice, Dan Marino, Drew Bledsoe, Barry Sanders, Brett Favre, John Elway, Randall Cunningham, and Steve Young. (The first Backyard game is supposed to the best game in the series)

The year 2000 saw Backyard Baseball 2001, which had licenses from Major League Baseball and Major League Baseball Players Association, followed that fall by Backyard Soccer MLS Edition, which was licensed by Major League Soccer.

Following the buyout of Humongous Entertainment by Infogrames, now known as Atari, Backyard Football 2002 and the first Backyard Basketball game were made. The latter had no NBA licenses, but it featured Kevin Garnett and Lisa Leslie. Each one was released in the fall of 2001. Backyard Baseball 2003 followed in the spring of 2002, with updated rosters (e.g. Cal Ripken Jr. is no longer in the game, but Ichiro Suzuki is). Later that year, Backyard Hockey, a game licensed by the NHL and the NHLPA, was released. Backyard Hockey introduced new character designs for each of the 30 Backyard Kids (e.g. Pablo Sanchez now wears a purple baseball cap backwards, but his shirt remains the same) and Sunny Day. The year 2003 saw updated versions of Backyard Soccer (with original character designs), Backyard Basketball, and Backyard Football. In 2004, a new game, Backyard Skateboarding, was released, and it featured Andy MacDonald. In Backyard Baseball 2007 the young kids change into older kids and get different designs and attitudes (sort of destroying the game's original "child-like" essence).

Following the buyout by Infogrames various games from the Backyard Sports series have been released for game consoles, including: Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and the PlayStation 2.

[edit] Trivia

  • Brenda Arellano and Dex Manley are the only 2 voices who have provided at least one voice in each of the six sports. Manley is known for providing the voices of Barry DeJay and Buddy Cheque. Arellano has only provided additional voices.
  • Klem Daniels has provided the voice of Chuck Downfield since 1999.
  • Jen Taylor, Lani Minella and Samantha Kelley have provided the voice of Sunny Day.
  • Ryan Drummond, better known for voicing Sonic the Hedgehog, has provided voices in two Backyard Sports games.
  • Backyard Skateboarding: Game of the Year Edition: On the Customize Skater option, one shirt that is choosable is titled "Star Runner"; it is a red shirt with a white star. This is a reference to Homestar Runner

[edit] List of games

Some games, notably console versions have completely distinct gameplay than PC/Mac version with same title, thus they're listed separately.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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